


Into the Open Air

by stardustedknuckles



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Canon Divergent, F/F, First Kiss, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:47:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27378187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustedknuckles/pseuds/stardustedknuckles
Summary: What if Yasha had noticed and reacted to the snowball Beau threw her way?
Relationships: Beauregard Lionett/Yasha
Comments: 11
Kudos: 263





	Into the Open Air

**Author's Note:**

> Sourslip and Avalencias had a brain wave on tumblr, and I thought I'd flip the script and write around the resulting sketch! Link in the bottom notes.

Beau's still not quite used to snow as a thing to be enjoyed.

Oh it looks nice enough, and on a personal level she likes the way it sort of muffles the world, but most of her experiences with it so far have been miserable and wet and focused on survival.

Actually a lot of her experiences have tended to go that way, and she's not entirely certain when that started changing either.

But there are snowballs flying, and it occurs to her that this is like, silver platter externalization of whatever's been brewing in her since…hmm. A while, so she takes up the chance to pack it and sling it and have a few moments where there's nothing but the cold gray sky and her friends laughing around her.

She's not quite laughing, not yet, and she can feel the tug of awareness of it, that she's missing some small piece that lets her laugh without reservation. When's the last time she genuinely just laughed? No alcohol, no sarcasm, just forgot herself and laughed?

When's the last time she forgot herself at all?

She kicks over Caleb's snowman and is slightly surprised when that brings her a kind of bad feeling instead of a good one. He seems to understand, though, and she loves him for that.

He also hurls her into a snowbank for being a shit, and that's why she bonded to him in the first place. She's almost giggling when she peels herself back out, almost. That missing piece, whatever it is, it seems to be getting smaller every time she checks on it. And honestly? That's really enough most of the time. She's a little scared of what things will look like when it's whole, what kind of person with her face and name will sit and laugh and point to a smiley face on a snowman and see herself in it.

It used to terrify her so much that she couldn't look at it dead on. Now it…intrigues her. She's seen genuine smiling and laughter pulled from the rest of them. Fjord, Veth, even Caleb. It's been beautiful to witness. Jester has always seemed brilliant to her because of that laughter, how it lives just under her skin and bursts forth without provocation. Even Yasha smiles more easily these days, fewer ghosts around her eyes. Beau thinks maybe it would be nice, to go on that journey herself.

Speaking of Yasha…

Beau scoops and throws before she can stop and overthink it, because that's how they've gotten here, right? All the shameless flirting, the come-ons, all her best moments have been off the cuff.

Her aim is true; the snowball plasters itself to the side of Yasha's face and slides down, and there it is, a giggle bubbling up from inside of her at the sight of Yasha in her furs and her sharp hat, blinking rapidly with no other change in her pleasant expression. She turns to Caduceus and says something he replies to in the affirmative, and then Yasha places her box on his.

Beau thinks she's going to ignore the snowball entirely - Yasha grew up in Xhorhas, right? Probably as used to the cold as Jester- and then Yasha's head turns to zero in on Beau. The benign little smile she was wearing at the sight of them all playing looks just this side of a little unhinged now, and something thrills in Beau to see it even as the smallest "oh shit" escapes to hang ephemeral for a moment in the air in front of her face.

Yasha is in her space incredibly fast, and there's nowhere for Beau to go as one of Yasha's gloved hands lodges in the snow bank next to Beau and the other lands on her shoulder. Yasha's giggling and Beau is giving a falsely alarmed shout, and then the bank of snow Beau's pinned against gives suddenly with a kind of squeak as the packed and layered ice folds under their weight. It shifts under them by a full eight inches and -

Wow, that's a whole new angle. Instead of being upright where she can duck easily from Yasha's arm and dart away for another assault, Yasha's knee is frantically seeking purchase in the snow right between Beau's and her face…she's _right there._

Beau's heart is hammering; she can feel Yasha's breath on her lips, knows she'll be lying in bed later running fingers along where she felt her, right there. Yasha's hat slipped off in the crash, and her tamed braids are frizzy and damp and flecked with snowflakes that match the ones on her lashes.

She's dimly surprised to find that the sight of Yasha blushing doesn't feel strange. It's just a confirmation of what she already knew. It's not enough for Beau to make any kind of move, but if Yasha does she won't say no.

"Um," says Yasha, stammering in the way Beau has come to expect and even anticipate. "You know how. You have an idea sometimes, and you don't think it all the way through?"

Beau nods, not trusting herself to speak.

Yasha flushes further. "Well, this ah…yeah. I should have seen this coming, and now we are here." Ice is melting against the back of Beau's head and the top of her neck. She doesn't move at all, knows she must look as wide-eyed and awkward as Yasha and not half as sweet.

Yasha looks like she's choosing her next words carefully, deliberating, and this is solid ground. Beau's great at recognizing when someone needs an out.

"Believe me, I know," she says breezily. "Half thought-out plans are a spe-"

Yasha's lips on hers are sweet and soft and somehow urgent, and Beau's train of thought catches fire and explodes as the little surprised noise she makes gets swallowed up Yasha - Yasha's _here_ , and she's _kissing Beau_ , and _holy fucking shit_.

Yasha pulls back far too soon, face still flushed but with a tiny triumphant smile. "That one I thought all the way through," she says softly. Her shy grin widens then, but Beau's muzzy brain is too slow to catch the trouble in it and react before Yasha pulls the front of Beau's robes open and stuffs a fistful of snow inside.

The sudden swing from feverish to icy catapults Beau to her feet with a yelp to paw it out as fast as she can, and when she looks back up it's to find Yasha doubled over and laughing with complete abandon.

Beau's been laughed at a lot - never for long, but often. But this isn't that. Yasha's not laughing at her expense. There's no cruelty in her expression, not a trace of sardonic intent. She looks so _young_ , Beau thinks suddenly. And it's cracking something open inside of her, a door that's rapidly becoming familiar to Beau but that she's still not sure how to name or grapple with.

Yasha also looks very _proximate_ , and Beau does know what to do with that.

Yasha looks expectant, now, when her eyes have opened to find Beau in her space and watching her. The slide of her lips on Beau's when they meet again is smoother for the smile she's still wearing.

"Which one of us is the happy one?" Beau had asked Caleb. His response had been kind, but here in Yasha's arms, Beau's starting to get the feeling that maybe happiness isn't something you wake up to one day all at once. Maybe it's something to be nurtured, soil to be prepared for when the seed of it comes along.

Or maybe she should stop thinking so much and just keep kissing Yasha before one of those assholes she can dimly hear cheering decides to throw another snowball.

That sounds good too.

**Author's Note:**

> https://avalencias.tumblr.com/post/633800589999996929/hello-sourslip-was-keeping-me-wonderfully


End file.
